Good teaching is best achieved when it is supported by empirically confirmed findings. At the same time, research-based learning is one of the most effective forms of learning. This book therefore seeks on the one hand to introduce research-based learning to student teachers and trainee teachers, and on the other to encourage religious studies teachers to do research into their own teaching and students - so far as possible in the context of school work. The introductions to empirical research methods included in this course book have been tried and tested in further and advanced training courses for teachers of religious education, and they are clearly comprehensible and relevant for specialist practice.

Prof. Manfred L. Pirner teaches Protestant theory of religious education at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg; Prof. Martin Rothgangel teaches Protestant theory of religious education at the University of Vienna.